For years, large and deeply suspicious money flows were channelled unhindered through Danske Bank’s branch in Estonia – in what experts say was in breach of anti-money laundering laws.

These suspicious transactions appear to have been used by the family of Russia’s President Putin, the Russian intelligence service, and the Azerbaijani regime. It also emerged that the bank’s top management was warned of suspected breaches early on, and that staff at Danske Bank Estonia acted consciously and actively to protect shady clients from authorities.

Throughout 2017 and 2018, Berlingske has worked to expose the money laundering at Danske Bank as one of the biggest banking scandals in Danish history. Below is an overview of how the case has developed, with links to essential articles.

The case, which was shared with a number of European media organisations as the »Azerbaijani Laundromat«, led Danske Bank CEO Thomas Borgen to launch a thorough review of the money laundering issues raised, following Berlingske’s revelations that the extent appeared to be »worse than feared«.

It later emerged that both the Danish financial regulator, Finanstilsynet, and Danske Bank’s own legal department were aware of suspicious Russian clients at the Estonia branch as early as the beginning of 2012, when the suspected laundering of billions of kroner was its height.

Links to Putin family and FSB

The case has since been shown to have spectacular links to the power elite in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

One of the earliest warnings sent to the Danske Bank top management came from an executive with the bank in December 2013, alerting the executive board to suspected breaches of anti-money laundering rules in the Estonian branch. According to this whistleblower, a number of companies with accounts in the branch were allegedly controlled by »the Putin family and the FSB«, the latter being the Russian intelligence service.

And while Dansk Bank’s management consistently maintained that the Estonian branch was only »a tiny part« of the bank’s total operations, Berlingske was now able to document that the portfolio of clients at the heart of the case was actually a money machine.

On the same day that Finanstilsynet published its strongly worded criticism of Danske Bank over its money laundering affairs, the regulator’s chairman, Henrik Ramlau-Hansen, also publicly resigned from his post.

The scandal grows and the police step in

Over the summer of 2018, the money laundering case took an explosive new turn.

First, Berlingske revealed that the suspicious money flows through Danske Bank’s scandal-hit Estonian branch appeared to be far more extensive than previously estimated. The total amount is now closer to 53 billion Danish kroner, or more than 8 billion US dollars – twice the previous estimate. This makes the Danske Bank case one of the largest known cases of money laundering in Europe.

An overview of Danske Bank’s dirty clients in Estonia is available here (in Danish).